Commuter Rail Plan for Jackson County

Posted on by David Stokes

I guess because we are always going somewhere, transit issues never seem to go away. Just today, we have the details of a proposed new commuter rail system for Jackson County. The plan details can be found here in the Kansas City Star. For more info, KC Light Rail has some thoughts about it here.

You might think that because we have released two studies by Randal O’Toole, one criticizing light rail and one criticising high-speed rail, that we might automatically be opposed to a commuter rail plan. That supposition would be premature, though, primarily because I haven’t had time to get to know the details, but also because there are things about commuter rail in general — and this plan in particular — that might make it a more cost-effective way for Kansas City to go.

Below, I have bolded some of the plan’s good ideas, as reported in the Star article:

Sanders said the commuter rail system could be built for as little as $7 million per mile, using existing rail corridors throughout the area. In some areas, double tracks would need to be laid to avoid conflicts between freight and commuter lines.

Sanders said the rail plan could be operational in two years after money becomes available. It would use diesel-powered commuter railcars that could travel faster and more cheaply than light rail, which can cost $70 million per mile.

The best idea, though, is this one at the end:

One option: A private company might operate the system.

So, I will be responsible and reserve judgment for now, but I will have much more to say when, and if, this plan moves forward.

Permits for Temporary Signs

Posted on by Sarah Brodsky

A Post-Dispatch article about a “Help Wanted” sign provides anecdotal evidence that supports my opinion of permits: Permit requirements are a tax (and a pain in the neck for people who have to deal with them).

The article reports on a sign that a business in Maryland Heights put up in order to let commuters know it was hiring. A code enforcement officer spotted the sign. Apparently, the sign blocked the view of some drivers, which would be a good reason to reposition it. But the officer wasn’t only interested in moving the sign in the name of safety and welfare; there was also the issue of permits. Maryland Heights businesses must pay a fee to erect a sign, and then the sign has to come down after two weeks. Businesses can repeat the process three times in a year. If they want to hire four times in a year, or post signs more than three times for any other reason, they’re out of luck.

Forbidding signs that obstruct visibility or hinder traffic is reasonable. Charging $25 for the privilege of erecting a harmless, temporary sign is not. It penalizes business that want to communicate with the world around them. In this case, the business wanted to let people know it was hiring — a message that everyone should welcome during this economy. The manager quoted in the article was right to be annoyed by Maryland Heights’ regulations.

Real-Life Economics in the Kansas City Star

Posted on by David Stokes

Today’s KC Star has a terrific article about how the economic downturn has impacted people’s day-to-day lives in one very big way: People are having fewer children. This is not surprising at all, but it is fascinating to see the numbers and consider the real-world results of that. From the article:

For example, Missouri’s birth rate — the number of births per 1,000 women of child-bearing age — in the first five months of this year dropped 6 percent, a decrease that state demographers called substantial.

My wife and I had our second child during that exact period. These numbers could well influence his entire life. There will be less competition for high school and college admissions. Perhaps there will be less competition for graduate school and right-out-of-college employment. With less demand, costs to us for some of these items might decrease, as well.  

Now, obviously, he would see these benefits if this is a one- or two-year decline in the birth rate. You won’t see many universities close because they are short on admissions for just one year. But if this becomes a longer-term decline in the birth rate, the supply curve of education options would decline as well. More importantly, if the decline in the birth rate is a sign of long-term economic contraction, all of our children are going to be impacted by the resulting reduced opportunities.

It is a very interesting article, and another example of how macroeconomic issues impact microeconomic choices.

Two Americans Win Nobel Prize in Economics

Posted on by Christine Harbin

This morning, two U.S. economists, Elinor Ostrom and Oliver Williamson, were awarded the Nobel Prize in economics. Both study economic governance and individual decision-making. Additionally, Ostrom is the first woman to win the prize for economics.

In an editorial in Forbes, John V.C. Nye, professor of economics at George Mason University, explains how Ostrom and Williamson have contributed to the subject:

Both can be seen as pioneers in understanding how markets work in the real world where transactions costs are high, establishing smoothly functioning markets is costly, information is incomplete, and hiring and production options are limited. They show how firms, communities and organizations come to solve these problems absent government regulation and how the choices they make can be disrupted or worsened by bad state policy or sustained by good rules that promote stable property rights and reliable contracts.

Ostrom’s and Williamson’s works relate to the Show-Me Institute’s tenets of limited government, property rights, and informed state policy. Congratulations to them both.

What Will Future Health Care Look Like?

Posted on by Christine Harbin

Today, Rik Hafer, chair of the Department of Economics and Finance at Southern Illinois University–Edwardsville and research fellow with the Show Me Institute, and Susan Feigenbaum, an economics professor at the University of Missouri–Saint Louis, published an op-ed in the St. Louis Business Journal, “Will future health care look like Canada’s or Britain’s?”

Will our future health care look more like Canada’s or Britain’s system? The answer depends on whether the system adopted simply expands the Medicare approach. […]

Hafer and Feigenbaum explain that, although each country has a health system that is government-run, many differences exist between them. For example, the Canadians and Britons have responded differently to problems relating to patient access and financing. Whereas Canada has discouraged the expansion of private medical insurance, Britain has encouraged it.

For more information about the negative consequences of government involvement in health care, check out the Show-Me Institute’s study by Arduin, Laffer & Moore Econometrics, “The Prognosis for National Health Insurance: A Missouri Perspective.”

Another Proposal Turned Down in Oregon’s Anti-Charter Environment

Posted on by Sarah Brodsky

Last night, a school board in Oregon turned down a charter school application because the proposed charter would compete with the district:

Board members said the 6-12th grade school, sponsored by Corbett School District superintendent Bob Dunton, was an innovative program but would compete with course offerings at the high school and represented a budget risk for the financially-strapped school district. […]

Though no board members specifically cited one of the state mandated reasons for denying a charter applications, after the meeting board members said the school represented an “identifiable adverse impact” on the school district because the district might lose students to the charter and therefore a portion of state funding.

When school boards can stop charters simply because they want to keep their monopoly, no charter is safe.

Breakfast Accountability

Posted on by Sarah Brodsky

The Philadelphia Inquirer reports that the School District of Philadelphia is going to start evaluating principals by, among other things, how many students eat breakfast at school.

I liked these comments from a principal:

Should a principal be blamed for a student who ate breakfast at home and therefore doesn’t eat in school?, asked Lerner, who was a principal for 22 years.

“Are we going to get to forced feedings?” he continued. “I think it’s wrong to assume no parent in Philadelphia is providing breakfast each day.”

I can see how providing breakfast could boost achievement if some students don’t have enough to eat at home. A breakfast program with such a goal has already succeeded if it makes food available. We can assume that students who don’t take advantage just aren’t hungry. (All students in Philadelphia are eligible for free breakfast, even students from high-income households.)

This is an example of a district focusing on minor details that have no link to classroom instruction, and missing the big picture. We’ve seen that happen in St. Louis, too.

How Does Missouri Health Care Compare?

Posted on by Stephen Feman

A recent news article compared cost and quality of health care across all the states of our country. We are in the middle of the United States, so it was good to find that our state was near the middle of Medicare spending per beneficiary, and close to the midpoint in terms of the “overall quality of health care.” Of the states that border Missouri, only Iowa was listed as having better quality, and more than half of the other bordering states were found to have both poorer quality and to be more expensive.

That is good to know, but that data was just for the Medicare population, a group that is mostly made up of people over age 65. What about the rest of us? To look at this, it is best to use information about life expectancy. In the medical community the phrase “life expectancy” describes the number of years a person would be expected to live if the current health care system remained as it is now, without any changes for the duration of that person’s life. In 2000, the U.S. Census Bureau said that life expectancy in Missouri was 76.2 years, and since that time it has improved to 76.8. Well, that is pretty good, and it is even better for you and me that it is getting longer. However, in 2009, the average life expectancy for the entire United States was reported to be 78.11. At that same time, in most of the industrialized nations of the world, life expectancy was reported to be 79.0. I guess that means that in Missouri, life expectancy is not as good as in most of the nation’s other states, and life expectancy is poorer than in of most of the industrialized nations of the world.

Why should that be? Could it be something simple, like there being not enough doctors for the number of people who are in need of medical care? That may be. (See my recent report on rural health care in Missouri.) The OECD tells us that in most of the industrialized nations of the world (that is, in the countries where people live longer than we do in Missouri), there are 2.9 practicing physicians per 1,000 people, while in the overall United States, there are only 2.34, and in Missouri there are only 2.24.

Nevertheless, the fact remains that we are spending more for health care than anybody else. Everyone knows that in the United States, we spend more than 16 percent of our Gross Domestic Product for health care, or $7,290 per person, while in Missouri it is $7,709 per person.

So, there you have it. As everyone knows, we are spending more and getting less. This needs to be changed. It may seem simplistic, but wouldn’t we be better off if there were more physicians? That would certainly reduce one complaint about there not being enough physicians to supply the current needs in this country. But, beyond that, wouldn’t an increase in physicians produce more competition among health care suppliers, and a corresponding reduction in fees?

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